Table sponsors, event sponsors and Reunion Weekend Package purchases are eligible for the Yegge Peak Weekend Getaway Prize. Table sponsors and event sponsors each receive two entries into the drawing, and Reunion Weekend Package purchasers receive one entry per package. Guest Packages are NOT eligible for the drawing. The winner will be announced at the dinner on Saturday night, and you MUST be present to win. We will be offering the winner a free weekend stay at Yegge Peak Lodge. The Lodge sleeps six people comfortably and has three bathrooms.

Details about the history of Yegge Peak:

Sound the “Retreat”: Historic Lodge Donated to Sturm College of Law

August 07, 2008

In a bittersweet ceremony that ties the past to the future, the University of Denver Sturm College of Law this summer officially accepted the donation of the historic Spruce Lodge II mountaintop retreat from the estate the late Robert B. Yegge.

As commemoration speaker Ken Goss told the assembled crowd June 28, the dedication was an event “decades in the making,” a story that dates back to the 1930s.

Yegge, a beloved instructor who led the University of Denver school of law as dean from 1965-1977 and again as acting dean in 1997 and 1998, used his family’s mountaintop property as a retreat, conference center and vacation home for years before his passing in 2006.

But the story really goes back to his father’s earliest days as a lawyer, and even as a law student at DU. Ronald Van Kirk Yegge found a cabin in the woods to study in the Jefferson County mountains southwest of Denver. It was in 1930 when a neighbor asked the newly-minted lawyer to represent him on a criminal case, in payment, the senior Yegge accepted a nearby mountaintop, now officially recognized on government maps as Yegge Peak.

Following graduation from the University of Denver College of Law in 1959, the younger Yegge, Robert, began to use the mountaintop property and a home there known as Spruce Lodge as he built his law practice. In 1964, according to a history of the property, his father presented him with the land through an ancient transfer practice called a “livery of seizing.” The ceremony involves passing a part of the property, in the form of sod or twigs from the land, to the recipient.

Time passed as Yegge built his ties to DU, frequently hosting events at the lodge. When it burned to the ground in 1980, he rebuilt it with the help of friends, reopening the facility as Spruce Lodge II.

On June 28, with friends and colleagues from the Sturm College of Law assembled, the university accepted his estate’s donation of the center through, fittingly, a livery of seizure.

“This day has been in the planning for decades,” Goss, Yegge’s longtime friend, said at the ceremony. “Bob’s parents, Ronald and Fairy, and later Bob, always believed that a fitting transition for this beautiful place would be from his family to the law school.”

Goss, who served as co-personal representative with Jack Hanley for the estate, thanked Greg and Betty Standley, Barbara Huff, and a host of dedicated volunteers who prepared the property for transfer and laid the legal work for the transition, including legal counsel Steve Flansburg.

“Steve has helped us navigate through some extraordinarily challenging situations,” he said. “I know if Bob were here today, in classic Yegge fashion, he would say to you, ‘You done good, kid.’”

Dean José (Beto) Juárez welcomes the gift and expects it to remain a fitting tribute to Yegge’s legacy and to his family.

“Spruce Lodge II was the site where Dean Yegge gathered with faculty and staff to plan the future of the College of Law,” he said. “All of us at the Sturm College of Law look forward to continuing Dean Yegge’s tradition of visionary work at Yegge Peak – even while building fellowship and having fun.”

“This Yegge Peak and Spruce Lodge II will be an important part of the college of law for many generations to come,” Goss said before inviting the assembled crowd to toast “our beloved friend, Bob Yegge.”